You probably won't believe this but I'm the most sympathetic

Post Reply New Topic

to the Aspiest one of us all, my older uncle. Of all my mom's family dealing with grandma's passing, he's the Aspiest (and diagnosed as bipolar) and going to have the most difficult time transitioning into life without her and her house. His siblings, especially my aunt, don't feel much sympathy for him because he's been an abusive a-hole to many people in his life, and he's also squandered a lot of time and money over the years.. as well as the opportunity to have a place of his own ~5 years ago when my other uncle, my aunt, and grandma sat down and talked about it and grandma said she'd put $100K down on a place for him and he'd have a mortgage of about $425/month that he could easily manage on his disability & old age pension payments. He refused because he'd be "too far away," (about a 45min drive) but really it's because he was so co-dependant on grandma and had lived in the house a long time. Big mistake because now it's impossible to buy such a property at that price since our real estate market has gone insane.

He's about to turn 65 next month and freaking out about how he'll get cut off of Provincial disability (apparently his is around $1400) and has to apply for Federal and is only guaranteed $586/month until all the paperwork is processed and this and that to see if he qualifies for Federal disability as a senior (apparently a high % are denied) and may end up with only the $586 + a top-up from welfare that would give him a little over $1000/mo. With that amount he can stay alive, especially if he has a roommate (but who would want to be his roommate? seriously. no one.) and sooo I can see his 18yo granddaughter maybe being roommates with him for a while. (but I hope for her sake she gets her own life and doesn't feel she has to look after him. he and my grandmother had custody of her from 2 years old, my grandmother raised her basically - and took her on when she was 79. there was a better family option as my brother and his now ex-wife tried to adopt her but were foolishly blocked by my uncle.)

Annnyways, I am literally the only one who's bothered to read and learn anything about ASD as everyone else prefers their "ignorance is bliss," attitude towards it, so I see that he didn't intentionally f**k things into the ground for himself.. he just did. So, I'm helping keep him calm and a bit better focused and on track to get his various paperwork etc done.. because at the other end of the spectrum my aunt will tell him she doesn't care about his sob story, pack your things and move. annnd she would definitely throw in a few F-bombs for good measure. Yes, he HAS been an awful human being to some people in his life (so has my other uncle a bit), so much so that for many years very, very, few people would ever go visit the house and see grandma. It got to a point where I was possibly the Only one and he told me yesterday that grandma thought I was so brave and that she appreciated that I'd come to visit, not just out of obligation to say hi, but to actually visit. That was nice to hear. Thing is, and he knows it, I can tolerate his ranting and raving because I understand it, and also because I'm not afraid of him one bit. Even if he decided to rant and rave and yell and get mad at me about something, in comparison he's a frail man and I'm strong af and have no reason to cower from his crap, so, it's been a very long time since he's ever actually blown up in my direction at all because he knows damned well it wouldn't do any good and that if he were to have ever lost his s**t and hit me (he never ever has) that he'd be the one on the receiving end of a world of hurt. So, if he ever was considering some sort of ragey violence, he suppressed it in my presence and we got along okay for the rare times we were around each other.

I also have a bit of a.. different connection to him, despite rarely seeing him, because he is and always was very highly intelligent - he just never found a way to balance himself and utilize it. Had I not learned and done what I have to be a far higher functioning human being now than I was 6 years ago, I'd be 100% directly on his path.. intelligent, but frustrated to the nth degree that I couldn't get the rubber to meet the road and do anything with it. Things are different for me now & I'm going to use it. (back to University I go at least part time this September) So there's that. He's not my problem and doesn't want to be a burden, but I acknowledge that he's freaking out about all of this and no one else is going say or do a damned thing to help him get anything accomplished.

Even if it's just little things like sending a text and reminding him to go to this office and that to file paperwork vs. spending a bunch of time cleaning out the house with him, at least it'll be of some help. I also gave him 4kg of epsom salts and told him to soak in a hot bath of them as many evenings in a row as he can manage right now so he can calm down a bit. And I intend to buy him a copy of Tony Attwood's "The Complete Guide To Asperger's Syndrome," because I think once he reads it he'll be more self accepting of all the things he's f****d up in his life that he really didn't have a fighting chance of not f*****g him. I think once he has that sort of better clinical understanding of himself he won't be so hard on himself for not having been able to be self sufficient and accumulate enough wealth to look after himself in old age and all that like his siblings have managed to do.

Just thought I'd share here. Talking about it here relaxes me about stressing over any of anyone else' problems that I don't have to take on at all. And also I get the impression here that some forum members truly do believe I'm an unsympathetic dickhead who would behave more like my aunt towards the lower functioning & that simply isn't so, so, I wanted to share this bit of my life with you all.

Last edited by goldfish21 on 11 Apr 2018, 12:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

Thank you.

My first thought: It would have been nice to have a $425 per month mortgage in a pretty part of British Columbia.

No doubt.. now that doesn't even cover what some strata (HOA) fees are on condos downtown. The prices of properties have probably tripled in the last 5 years soooo, there's approximately nowhere nearby one could buy a comparable property like he could have had bought for him with an early inheritance 5 years ago. Now with his income dropping and mortgage rates rising, he couldn't qualify for much of a mortgage if at all.. so even if he does inherit $100K from grandma's estate he might not be able to even buy a bachelor in the suburbs anywhere. His only option may be to invest his inheritance into something stable and then siphon off the interest every month to top up his gov't payments to pay for rent/food etc. Maybe.

Depends on what grandma's final version of her will said. She had a couple over the years. As far as my mom and aunt know, his inheritance is lower because gradma gave him a lot of money over the years to pay off his debts from a taxi business etc & help his kids out etc, and my other uncles will be higher because he paid for a lot more things for grandma. I don't know what all of the accounts total exactly, but the house my grandfather built will be sold for the property value of ~$900K and other accounts I heard of had at least another $300K in them and there's probably more than that. Then it depends on how grandma decided to have it split between her kids the last time she edited her will. He may still inherit enough to put down on a place to live.. but then again, I heard whatever his share is was to be setup in some sort of Trust and doled out monthly as otherwise he would lose all gov't benefits and counselling/group therapy/medications etc. Something like that. So even if he inherits $100K plus he might not be able to access it to buy a place anyways and will have to rent somewhere. Whatever, the dust will settle and he'll get something figured out. My aunt couldn't give a s**t less if he ended up on the street and she never ever heard from or spoke to him again.. I know once the estate is settled she'll never speak to him again, she said so yesterday. I think he's worried he could end up homeless... super tight expensive rental market here right now, but, I don't think he Will end up on the street. He'll have to give up a lot of his hoarded possessions very quickly, though. He knows it.

But yeah, I feel for him.. he was most dependant on grandma, so there's her death, plus the whole turning 65 and doing paperwork thing and filing overdue taxes and applying for federal disability pension (which has to be re-applied for annually as if people somehow magically become capable of full time work when they're disabled and 70) and moving, getting rid of most of his hoarded crap, figuring out where his granddaughter who lives at the house is going to live & if they're going to split the rent somewhere together for now etc etc. It's everything all at once and he has the least capacity to deal with any of it.

He thanked me for our visit yesterday, for spending the time to talk, make a couple coffees and help him realize which things are important and which aren't so he can calm down a bit and have a plan of attack and all that. I FULLY understand why others don't like him and why my mother shut the door in his face when he got loud and frustrated for a moment and just turned around and went into her house vs. subject herself to any of his ranting.. I get it, but I also get that while he is this way, it's not the way he intends to be or wishes he was. He wishes he'd have been able to pull his own weight independently his whole life instead of having to rely on others - he's frustrated with himself over.. everything. My aunt's probably spot on in that he hoped grandma would live forever and he'd die first so he wouldn't have to deal with any of this. But, that's not the way things are and he has no choice but to deal with it all as best he can.

edit: For a woman who died with a net worth of $1.2+ Million (and who knows what mutual funds or rrsp's etc might be in addition to the accounts I heard about), you'd have never guessed it if you met my grandmother, ever. She spent money like The Great Depression never ended. Seriously. She pinched pennies like she had NO money. She also wasn't materialistic and clearly didn't care about most of the things that money could buy, anyways. My spending habits have been a lot like hers the last handful of years & I'll be better off for it in the long run. Thanks grandma!

Well its nice that you are mature enough to help the guy out. The world needs more good deeds like this.

I wish I knew how to save money!

I do what I can.

Here’s the super top secret way to save money that most people don’t know:

Don’t spend it!

Seriously. That’s it, that’s all. Stop spending your money and it will accumulate. It really truly is that simple.

One way to help that is by making purchasing decisions based on the very simple economic concept of Wants vs Needs. Spend money on only what you Need, not what you Want, and the excess piles up. Literally ask yourself before every purchase decision: “Do I Need this?” If the answer is no, don’t buy it.

And the secret not to not longing for Wants is to simply not Want for anything. Truly. I have almost every thing I could possibly want, so it’s exceedingly rare that there’s some “thing,” I want, and when I do I save up for it and wait and wait so that IF I do buy it, it’s special.

Out of necessity when I was bankrupt 6 years ago, I learned to Spend Time Not Money! I live a fantastic life of going to beautiful picturesque beaches more than 100 days a year to hang out or go kiteboarding and it costs me little more than time, gas money, and a homemade lunch/dinner that I would eat anyways.

My twin brother and his girlfriend earn literally 3x my income. They have debt, I have savings. He made the false argument that he’s not willing to have “no quality of life,” just to save every penny. I pointed out that I have an amazing quality of life of going to beaches, kiteboarding, partying for days a few times a year, going to concerts, and don’t deny myself things or experiences I value - I just simply don’t Want for things and he other priorities that are more important to me to be able to pay for (University for the next several years) than nickel & diming myself to financial ruin (again) with bad daily habits that add up to big expensive mistakes.